Day 5 - Tuesday, September 8th

What You’ll Do in Class Today

Show students how to develop their
responses with reasons and evidence

Engage students on the issue of urban
sprawl

Do a mini-analysis of Steven Hayward’s
writing situation

Introduce the second type of response -
interpreting and reflecting on the text. Then practice applying this type
of response to Hayward’s essay.

Connection to Course Goals

Discussing reasons and evidence helps
students develop their own ideas with support. It encourages them write more
focused and thoughtful responses, as opposed to a list of unsupported
reactions.

Activities

1.Model Introduction: “Today we’ll discuss two of
the three types of response - agree/disagree and interpretive/reflective. We’ll
focus specifically on developing reasons and evidence within a response,
because that is one of the most important skills involved in writing. Writers
who produce effective responses take the time to explain what they think, but
they also show why they think what they do, providing clear reasons and
evidence for their readers.”

2.Informal
discussion reviewing evidence (10 minutes):

·What is
evidence?

·What are
the different types of evidence (think back to the PHG)?

·Where
might you need to use some evidence in your summary/response essay?

·What
kind of evidence might you use in your summary?

·What
kinds of evidence might you use in your response?

3.Have
students revise their responses (10 minutes): Ask students to read back through their responses and to revise
accordingly. Have them reflect on the discussion you just had and ask them to
check for the following (put these on an overhead): Check to see:

·that
you've clearly made a point (agree/disagree)

·that you
are responding to a main idea from the essay

·that
you've given a sufficient reason for your opinion (tell us why)

·that
you've provided some well-developed evidence (show us why)

·that
your reasons and evidence are focused - they connect back to the overall point
you’re trying to make

** Tell students that others will be looking at
their revised responses shortly (this will be incentive to stay on task).

Model
Transition: “At this
point, I’d like to shift our focus from agree/disagree responses to
interpretive and reflective responses. We’ll use Steven Hayward’s argument on
urban sprawl as a means for practicing this type of response. Since urban
sprawl is an issue of growing concern, let’s start with your ideas before we
address Hayward’s views. This will help to get you thinking about where you
stand on some of these popular issues, so that when it’s time for you to choose
your own issue (for Portfolio 2) you’ll have given some thought to these
things.”

4.WTL
(5 minutes): How would you define
urban sprawl? What is your experience with it or knowledge about it? How has it
affected you so far (your city or your neighborhood, your travel experiences,
your recreational habits, your general beliefs, values or lifestyle)? Do you
believe that urban sprawl is an important issue or is it, as Steven Hayward
suggests, "the sort of issue that could worry only a fat and happy
land"? Support your position with reasons and evidence.

5.Discuss
WTLs (5-10 minutes):Ask students to share their responses to the
WTL questions. The goal of this informal exchange is to "hook"
students. In order to encourage them to think more critically about issues, it
is useful to start with their ideas.

Model Transition to Next
Activity: Steven Hayward has a unique take on
this issue. Most activists on sprawl tend to be environmentalists and democrats
(people who oppose sprawl). But Hayward makes a strong argument against the
negative effects of urban sprawl. We're going to look closely at where his
argument is coming from so that we can talk about how you might respond to an
essay like this - by looking at the main ideas and what they suggest.

6.Mini-Analysis
of Steven Hayward's writing situation (10 minutes):This activity is designed to prepare students to accurately represent
Hayward's ideas and to look for assumptions and implications in his argument.
In order to fully understand a writer's argument, it's important to understand
the situation he/she is writing for. Likewise, in order to determine what
assumptions inform a writer's argument or what their argument suggests, it is
important to know where the writer is coming from.

·What can
you tell about the Review from looking at their online subscription page?

·(They're
very conservative and anti "liberal media")

·Who
appears to be their target audience? Who do they hope to reach or affect?

·What can
we infer about the writer (Steven Hayward) based on this context?

·What is
the argument Hayward makes for this particular audience?

·(Essentially
that sprawl is not a significant issue and that smart growth plans are
ineffective and doomed to fail just like urban renewal.)

·How does
he support this argument? (Ask students to reference specific places in the text
and explain their answers clearly)

Model Transition to Next
Activity: So now that we have a general sense
of where Hayward's coming from and what his argument is, let's talk about how
we might respond to the ideas in his essay.

7.Discuss
responding to Hayward's essay (15-20 minutes): The goal for this activity is to reinforce concepts from the
agree/disagree response and to introduce a new type of response - interpreting
and reflecting. On an overhead, highlight the three kinds of response from the PHG:

·Agreeing
and disagreeing with the ideas in a text

·Interpreting
and reflecting on the text

·Analyzing
the effectiveness of a text

Ask students if Hayward's essay lends itself
to the agree/disagree type of response (it does). And invite them to elaborate
on which ideas they might respond to in an agree/disagree format. Then, explain
that you will use Hayward's essay to explore another kind of response -
interpreting and reflecting. Note: Be sure that you explain the
following points (include these on the overhead that you used for the types of
response above):

·The goal
of an agree/disagree response is to emphasize one important idea from a
writer's text and support or refute that idea using reasons and evidence. Here,
you want to convince a reader that your position is a favorable one.

·The goal
of an interpretive response is to look critically at an argument in order to
explain what it fully means. Looking critically at a text requires you to
inquire beyond what the text actually says. One way to do this is to locate the
assumptions that inform a writer’s argument and find out what the writer's
argument implies. Along the way, you may find yourself agreeing with or
refuting the writer's ideas and the assumptions and implications that are tied
to these ideas.

·The goal
of an analytical response is to determine a text's effectiveness by examining
its parts. You might look at the purpose, the intended audience, the thesis,
the main ideas, the organization and evidence, and the language and style.
Here, your aim is to point out an essay’s strong points and/or where it falls
short. Analyzing the text's effectiveness allows you to make more informed
decisions about the usefulness and credibility of a writer's argument.

** Inform students that you'll be focusing on
the interpretive response for Hayward's essay. Since locating the assumptions
and implications in an argument are an important part of interpreting an essay,
you'll want to define the following terms for them as well:

Assumption - is what a person believes to be true. However, assumptions are not
always true; they are not shared by everyone or supported by unquestionable
evidence. Writers make different assumptions based on their background and
experience. Assumptions inform a writer's argument. If you look closely at a
writer's use of language, tone, and evidence you can sense the assumptions a
writer is making about their topic and their audience (their beliefs, their
values, and their expectations).

Implication - is a suggestion that is not directly stated.
Writers may imply something when they are hesitant to write a bold statement or
reluctant to make unsupported claims (for example, a writer may not state that
the Vice President is too old to be in office, since this could be viewed as
inappropriate. But their argument may suggest this none the less). This type of
implication is usually driven by the writer’s opinions, so it tends to be
hidden "between the lines." In order to fully understand an argument,
you’ll want to locate the implications a writer’s argument makes.

Implications can also be the logical
ramifications of an argument that the writer may or may not be aware of. For
example, one of the implications of making abortion illegal is that back alley
abortions would increase and the fatality rate, due to botched abortions, would
rise. One way to look for this kind of implication in an argument is to ask,
"What does this argument suggest is happening or could happen in the
future? Does the argument hint at an escalating problem? Does it suggest anything
in the way of “effects” or what could result if a particular action is taken?

8.Practice
using the terms "assumptions and implications" (10 minutes):Use the following questions or devise your own to get students thinking
about what assumptions are:

What assumptions might we make about:

·someone
who reads the Collegian?

·someone
who reads the New York Times?

·someone
who watches Dawson's Creek?

·someone
who watches Star Trek?

·someone
who lives in San Francisco?

·someone
who lives in Salt Lake City?

** Use this activity to reinforce the point
that assumptions aren't always completely fair and shared by everyone. Also,
remind them that assumptions are shaped by one's own experience and
environment. Include the following questions to show students why it is important
to examine a writer's assumptions:

·When are
readers likely to agree with a writer's assumptions?

·What
assumptions does Hayward make (about sprawl or about his readers beliefs and
values in general)?

·Will all
readers agree with his assumptions? Who won't?

·How will
looking at assumptions help you fully interpret Hayward's essay?

·How
might looking at assumptions help you write an interpretive essay?

Design an activity where you get students to
practice using the term "implications". You might use advertisements,
look at political cartoons/arguments, or develop sample claims/arguments that
contain various implications. Be creative!

At the end of the activity, make sure
students understand the distinction between assumptions and implications. If
they don’t fully understand, inform them that assumptions already exist without
the argument. Assumptions inform a writer's position. Implications result from
the writer's argument.

9.Model
Conclusion: “Today
we talked about how you might reflect on or interpret an argument more
critically by examining an author’s assumptions, and the implications of their
argument. We will continue practicing this second kind of response for one more
class period before moving on to discussing our last type of response -
analyzing the effectiveness of a text.”

Assignment

Read comments from the in-class mini-workshop and complete a
final revision for your response to Schrag. Then, read Steven Hayward's essay,
"The Brawl Over Sprawl" (http://www.townhall.com/features/sprawl.html)
and visit the National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com)
to give you a sense of where his essay was published and who his intended
readers are). Write a brief summary and a two page interpretive response to
Hayward's essay. In your summary, represent the author's ideas fairly. In the
response, expand on these ideas by reflecting on key passages from the text and
interpreting what the argument means. Point out any assumptions that the writer
is making about his audience or his issue (use textual evidence to support
this). Then, reflect on any phrases and passages where the text may suggest or
imply something more than what it actually states. Post your response to the
SyllaBase Class Discussion Forum and bring a hard copy of your draft to class.